Jump to content

Pit-Road 1/144 Avro Vulcan B.2 Blue Steel


Recommended Posts

I've always liked the mighty Avro Vulcan bomber and have fond memories of twice watching XH588 displaying its amazing power and maneuverability; when my good friend Sérgio Cabral gave me a 3D printed resin Vulcan B.2 Blue Steel of his range of "Fofi" (Portuguese for cutie) models I thought it would be nice to display his model alongside with a "proper" scale model and after reading good reviews of the Great Wall Hobby (GWH) kit I ordered from Hobby Link Japan the Pit-Road version of the Blue Steel carrying B.2 in my favourite livery: overall "anti-flash white" in 617 "The Dambusters" squadron markings.

54049de0f3dc17fd18a82e1f40e96e4a.jpg

This is my first 1/144 scale model (I only have 1/48 kits) and I didn't know what to expect from this "tiny" scale but right away from the box the kit looks very good, the top and bottom parts are devoid of any injection gate marks and have excellent surface detail, this looks like a quality product and I hope to make it justice.

Here you have the usual boxtop, sprue and decal photos including the only aftermarket "goodie", a Master brass refuelling probe.
 Stay tunned!

e28932645fbf796641b080346a0d6a55.jpg
94ee30030b2ec1ca1628d41ba7fab5a7.jpga72b81227c1a1775d5f690181f9c21a5.jpg

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's start... and problem number one: the intakes are molded in one piece, great to avoid filling seams but why did they mold the Bristol Olympus compressor faces with the intakes? How am I going to paint these parts?

I thought the least risky solution would be to drill the compressor faces from the back and replace with a "2D" photo of the engine front; not so easy to find a decent photo of the Olympus "straight in the face" but after one hour with Corel Draw I managed to have a nice 5mm wide representation.

Unfortunately drilling the plastic parts scarred a bit the intakes when using the final 5mm drill bit, now I need to putty, sand and paint the intakes gloss white but I think the result will be better than 4 white Olympus or blobs of silver paint messing the white intakes all over!

3a8bd13333466411929222cb724ec83d.jpg 
0986dc82853ee636fa50af9ad4c6ca76.jpg

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
5 hours ago, Screech said:

Nice start!

 

Where did you find/get the EGG Vulcan from??

Hi Michael, 

My friend and workmate Sérgio Cabral sells the 3D print files for a very small fee, he recreated quite a few aviation classics following his own aesthetics (not exactly "eggplanes") of which we argued for hours, I'm a sailplane fanatic loving long wings of high aspect ratio and him designing these almost wingless flying creatures. Anyway, 3D printed in resin the detail is incredible and they look cute! 😉

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/toy-plane-avro-vulcan-b-2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Rui Silva said:

Just a small update: tiny pilots painted, I guess none of it will be visible but it's there! :)

7d910f7c7d03bf9efdb8454cbfe7bdb7.jpg

I put them in on my first build which was a B1a conversion but I didn't bother on my third build which was also gear up

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Another small update: the intakes need quite a bit of Mr. Surfacer 500 as there's a "ridge" between wing "intake lips" and intake parts and this must be dealt with.

Top and bottom wing parts glued, it all clicks together nicely now wait, sand and fill!

4757820d6678b7f4282ec0932294472b.png
8f7ff9aa4cde44058a8a929b36267981.jpg

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First inspection of the main parts after gluing: bottom elevons and elevon actator fairings are a bit oversize and need filing, the foto does not show it so well, right side already is filed, one must be careful to avoid damaging the surface detail.

And the nose section will need filler and some sanding too!

4b69111944be882eac968f2ae25c7c0e.jpg
91285f110a34f6a027a6cb8adf458d48.jpg

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking good so far. I have my fourth one of this kit to build after Christmas.

 

I just noticed that they have made a similar mistake to the Victor kit here and included roundels for both wings on the camouflage scheme. That style of roundel was only applied to the left wing. If you do the white scheme, they go on both. 

I'd be interested to see the instructions in this version of the kit, do they say that only one ECM plate (the flat bit under the engines) should be applied to XL321, on the right side?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

I just noticed that they have made a similar mistake to the Victor kit here and included roundels for both wings on the camouflage scheme. That style of roundel was only applied to the left wing. If you do the white scheme, they go on both. 

I'd be interested to see the instructions in this version of the kit, do they say that only one ECM plate (the flat bit under the engines) should be applied to XL321, on the right side?


Hi Adam,

As you can see from the instructions, XL321 is show with roundels on both wings on the top side and none on the bottom side, XM571 in camouflage is show with the roundel only on the left side, as you consider correct.

Both airplanes have two ECM plates, is this correct?

cb4b7dff7a3676fff8b97b4a79adbda2.png
b491a9aa4156db8eb9a2bb0500eade97.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Rui Silva said:


Hi Adam,

As you can see from the instructions, XL321 is show with roundels on both wings on the top side and none on the bottom side, XM571 in camouflage is show with the roundel only on the left side, as you consider correct.

Both airplanes have two ECM plates, is this correct?


 

Roundels are correct then. Two 84" roundels on the wings for white, one for early camo (the second reappeared in the 70s soon after the two shade roundels were introduced), 54" roundels on the fuselage (the kit I think has 48" ones) and 18x36" fin flash. No roundels underneath on any Vulcan other than the prototypes. 

The second ECM plate was fitted I think between 1962 and 1964, and not in order of serials. XM571 had the second fitted as did XL321, however no Vulcan had the second while in the white scheme afaik so if you do XL321, it would not have the second ECM plate. 

I'll check to see if I have any colour photos of 321 also to confirm if the colour of the dielectric panel on the tail is correct, I think it would be that creamy beige colour not black.

At least the engine type is correct in this kit for both airframes. The B2 kit includes Olympus 301 powered Vulcans (XM607 and XM597)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your advice, I've checked the kit's fuselage roundels and indeed they are of the smaller size, fortunately I've CtA sheet no.2 (V-Bombers in Anti-flash white) and it has the correct 54" roundels, mind you, the diameter difference in 1/144 is all of 1,06mm!

Regarding the ECM plates it seems you're again correct, only one and on the right (starboard) side, colour seems to be the underside colour with heavy soothing.

On all the photos I saw the fin cap fairing is painted black, the photo below is just to remind us how beautiful the Vulcan was in flight! 

85ff2bd9f45dc9d0fd85a1b96aaca817.png





 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

After three months in the "shelf of doom", the Vulcan is back to the workbench.

I did some minor rescribing of the elevons, I used for the first time the Scribe-R, it works fine but I'm not so good at scribing,I  also closed all the landing gear doors and glued the engine fairings, the model is now ready for priming, stay tuned and stay safe!

6e72a13b4a1aa4ad887c95126f469be0.jpg

  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...